


The road goes on

by Papaveri



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: F/F, Monster People, Roadtrip, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 04:37:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papaveri/pseuds/Papaveri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Utena has to be constantly moving places, since people like her just can't stay for long. This time, she finds someone to go with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The road goes on

There is a woman in the backseat.

Utena sees her when he adjusts the rear mirror, a flush of color (pink clothing and violet hair and brown skin, the former just, just peeking under the others) like a soapy puddle splashed over the white leather of the seats. Her breath catches and for an instant she thinks about going back.

But going back entails a myriad of problems, like a troupe of hunters with their rifles ready; the woman in the backseat, not so much.

In the best case, she can drop her off in the next station. Utena doesn't think about the worst case, but grips the steering wheel a bit harder. The adrenaline from the moment when she opened the door of that car still hasn't worn off, and neither has the feeling of suffocation when she got on it, as if even the buildings, the gasoline dispensers were staring at her, ready to give off her intentions. The wheels squeaked on the asphalt when she turned the engine on and she's sure at least someone, a couple with a kid, she thinks, turned back to watch her go; all of that is still making her heart thump.

The woman in the backseat eventually rises, ironically enough, just as the sun is going down. Utena sees her reflection again: the woman wears glasses and her hair is in a tight bun, and she smiles at her.

Did she really?

“Er, I'm sorry”, she stammers. “I... I really thought the car was empty. I mean, it doesn't make the stealing okay, but...”

_ I can drop you off wherever you want, I can even go back _ ; she feels the words at the back of her throat, but the woman laughs a bit and cuts them off at their roots like weeds.

“Do not worry”, she says. She has a sweet voice, genuine, too. “I understand.”

_ You really don't _ .

“Well then”.  _ I guess _ . “We're going to stop somewhere for the night, so you can think it over?” 

Utena knows the trip is going to be a long one, but her odd companion doesn't ask about it, doesn't ask about why she stole a car, doesn't ask about the former driver (Utena didn't see them, Utena didn't do anything to them), she just wants to know one thing, it seems:

“What is your name?”

“Ah. Utena”, she feels the impulse of telling her her real name, or maybe it's the bewilderment that doesn't let her think of an alias.

“I'm Anthy”. 

 

***

 

The walls of the motel they stop at are surprisingly white, or maybe it's just the lamppost light reflecting on them and against the night sky (it's pretty dark, though, you can see so many starts, like milk stains over a black tablecloth). It's surrounded by a little thicket and Utena hopes the car won't be swarmed with bugs in the morning. Is she thinking of it as something that belongs to her already? She wants to believe it's just because she likes Anthy well enough.

“Who where you going with?”, Utena asks once they're in their room. The motel sounds empty, and the receptionist was prim and quiet; she feels she needs some sound, some conversation, and that's the only topic that comes to mind. “On the car, I mean”. 

“My brother”, she says. 

Utena feels her stomach drop and clutches her jacket.

“Oh my god”, she whispers. “I'm really sorry! I swear to god I don't want to do anything to you! He must be so worried, you should...”

“It is quite alright”, she continues. The smile she's worn since she's known her (so solid it seemed like her lips could only form that one shape) fades a bit. “But I hope you understand I prefer you not to ask more questions about it? I won't ask either”, she points at the jacket she's putting on, “and won't wait for you awake, if that's okay with you?”

Utena swallows. In her pocket, the money she was going to give her so she could buy dinner sits heavy as actual gold. She wouldn't have been there to have it with her, that's all, and she wasn't going to let her pay. She, this time she had no distractions, she had thought up an excuse and everything.

She decides she might as well use it.

“I'm not hungry”, she lies. “I was just going to go for a stroll, but... Yes, it's okay if you sleep. I mean, of course it's okay”, it's not like they're living together or something, isn't it?

She leaves the money on the little counter by the door anyway, and on they way out she almost chews her lips raw.

 

***

 

The grass under her feet (Utena wants to think of them as feet) feels so, so soothing.

 

***

 

The trip goes as smoothly as Utena didn't dare imagine: there isn't much traffic, there always seem to be stops when she needs them (eerily empty, too, but that's not a problem; she likes the young drivers that pay her no mind and the coldly polite attendants just fine), and whenever she accidentally forgets to change the radio station before the news report comes in, the signal goes weak and the announcer's voice becomes muddled in gray, distorted sound.

And Anthy keeps her company: on the second day, she apologizes for the night, saying she was a bit scared and spoke without thinking.

“You must have had your motives”, she says, sincere. “Yesterday I just wanted to scare you a little too. It felt only fair”.

(Utena holds her breath in the second between sentences)

“And I hope we can eat together from now on?”, she finishes with a smile.

(She lets it out, slowly).

“Yeah!”

And it's kind of hard, to stomach the food in the restaurants of the motels, but it's not an effort that goes unrewarded: Anthy eats like a bird of prey, her lips looking oddly fuller and darker, and doesn't seem to mind small talk. She manages to make her smile, drawing everyday stories out of her like water from a well (Utena tells her about her aunt and her friends and her telescope), and never comments about her half full plates.

“When we get to a nice enough clearing or something”, Utena says one time, “I'll show you the stars. You can see the Milky Way at this time of the year, you know?”

“I will show you my garden, then”.

She stirs the sugar in her cup of tea and Utena can almost smell flowers in her hands.

 

***

 

It's a bit awkward, talking to someone who sits on the backseat, but Anthy always goes for it when they get back on the car, and refuses when Utena tells her she can go to the front whenever she wants to.

“You can... Well, you can always get off whenever you want, too”, she explains. “I'm not even really sure where I'm going to stop, myself”.

Because, ah, the idea of dragging her away has been biting at her from the inside, burning and red and pulsating, and yet Anthy doesn't seem to mind much. She's just running away, from people, mostly, and taking a woman with her was the last thing on her mind.

_And in any case, you should had asked Wakaba_ , and there's a pang of guilt in her gut. 

“When you decide, you should tell me”, Anthy says. “And then I will make my choice”.

“Where you going somewhere with your brother? Maybe I could take you there”.

Anthy looks out of the window for a moment. At that time of the day, the only thing that seems to be on the road are a couple other cars and the unlit lampposts like metal chaperons.

“We did have a destination”, she says, looking back to her, to her reflection in the rear mirror, actually, “but that does not matter. Let's keep going”. 

And that's what she does.

 

***

 

That night, she wanders too far away, and loses sight of the motel. Deer blood is still warm in her mouth when she realizes: she doesn't see any artificial light, only trees, trees and wilderness that swallow her in their greenish blackness.

She blinks, confused.

What if she can't get back? What if she's lost her place to sleep, and the car, the car, she needs the car to get as far away as she can, what if she has to pass the night there, the thicket didn't look so deep but her senses are really nothing special compared to wolves and the like, what if, what if she cannot see Anthy again?

She thinks of Anthy and almost can see the exact instant the lamppost suddenly comes back to life in the distance, springing in the darkness like her thought of the woman she found in the backseat.

And in that moment Utena understands.

(She's heard the stories, but she thought you found them in the street, on the road, always moving like her, not on the cars themselves. There is some vague feeling of relief and reassurance inside her, soothing the raging red thing that's been bothering her for weeks).

 

***

 

Anthy looks the most natural at night, when she undoes her hair and takes off her glasses (her eyes look like they're reflecting something, like lenses over lenses over lenses), and Utena wishes she didn't have to eat, or that she could invite her.

“Can I go with you tonight?”, Anthy says, almost like a mind-reader. “Can you show me your stars?”

Utena grips on her own hands when she smiles at her and thinks that, well, it's just one night, isn't it, she's had little bites of food here and there, she can make it, she's been like that for longer than one night.

And, probably, Anthy  _knows_ , just like she does. Did her brother know? Does he really have a brother?

(But she has an aunt; why wouldn't Anthy have family herself?)

“Yeah! Of course!”

There are a couple trees around the motel they're staying it, green against its white walls, and the lampposts aren't bright enough to have an effect on the night sky; Utena offers her jacket so Anthy doesn't have to sit directly on the ground (Anthy opens her eyes with something that looks close to surprise but it's somewhat veiled), and digs around her pockets to find her crumpled map of the sky.

“I wish I had one of those fancy round ones, with sliders”, she explains. “This one it's really old, but it's easier to carry around”.

When she hands it over to her, Anthy, again, looks a bit puzzled.

“Ah, it's... I think my finger would be a tad hard to follow, wouldn't it. So this is to make it easier for you to know where everything is”.

Anthy's gaze goes from the dark blue in the map to the dark blue sky puddles left along the Milky Way; Utena looks at her in between words, and doesn't realize when she lets her last sentence die off unfinished. Anthy's hair gleams under starlight like salted fire.

She asks her if she can kiss her.

(“Yes”, a soft murmur.)

 

***

 

“Where were you going with your brother?”, Utena asks. 

Anthy is now sitting in the front, her hair going down her right shoulder and her glasses neatly folded in her left hand.

“To a place”, she tells her. “But you understand, right? Us monsters are always traveling”.

The only thing dotting their trip are the white motels, with their sparse lampposts and their charming thickets.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me in the half hour I get in between classes on Mondays, and it took me a couple days to write it. Which is really little, considering all the shorter things in this account took longer!
> 
> I've always been really scared of writing this ship because I think the semi-surreal, not-quite-there setting of Ohtori was hard to capture and it's a part of it I liked. I hope I managed to at least recall a bit of it! 
> 
> On my original notes, Utena was a werewolf and Anthy was a witch inspired in the girl ghosts you're supposed to find on roads at night (do these exist outside Spain?). In the end, I decided not to make it explicit in the text - what you got reading it is also a 100% legit interpretation! 
> 
> At the end of the day, I do hope this was not too hard to understand, haha. Thanks for reading!


End file.
